Maybe a Career Change is in the Future
by Lisa Telramor
Summary: Takagi could swear someone was watching him, but for the life of him, he couldn't think of why...


_AN: This was from a prompt on livejournal, which is why it's a bit out of the ordinary. Still, it was fun to write. Please read and review. :)_

**Disclaimer: I own no part of Detective Conan or Magic Kaito. It's all Gosho-sama's genius borrowed for my own amusement.**

KID wasn't quite sure what happened. He had thought that the police officer he was impersonating was naïve…and frankly a bit too soft for the job. He was a nervous, shy man who couldn't even look the girl he loved in the eyes. Yet it seemed he wasn't as incompetent as he originally thought. Somehow, between being gassed and bundled into a space where he wouldn't found for a few hours, the man had held onto enough of a shred of consciousness to cuff him.

True, it was loose and obviously not going to slow him down any, but it caught his interest. It was a bit like the chibi-tantei. There was a pure moment of surprise that someone could hinder his movements for even a few seconds, then the burning curiosity that demanded he find out more about the man later outside of his impersonations.

"Takagi Wataru, huh?" he murmured, releasing the cuff and pulling his mask onto his face. "I'll be seeing you later…"

* * *

Perhaps he was just being paranoid. That happened after years on the force, right? But Officer Takagi Wataru had the distinct feeling he was being watched. It had started with little moments where he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye, or when—in the middle of a conversation with Miwako—he would suddenly get chills, like someone was glaring daggers in his direction. He'd mentioned it to Shiratori once, but the man had scoffed that he was imagining things.

He had ignored it for a while, but he was _sure_ that there was _someone_ watching, though he couldn't seem to catch the person in the act. All in all, he was starting to feel twitchy. Being a police officer with quite a few arrests under his belt, he had enemies. The weird thing was that the stare didn't feel hostile, more curious and calculating.

He sighed. There really wasn't anything he could do unless the person came out into the open.

"Takagi!"

He jumped as someone pressed a cold drink against the back of his neck, startling him from all circular thoughts. "S-sato-san," he stammered, blushing.

"Here," she said, handing him a soda from a vending machine. "You've looked pretty distracted lately. Ever since the KID heist, actually." She leaned closer, frowning. "It isn't some weird side effect of the sleeping gas is it?"

Takagi blinked. He hadn't really thought about it, but she was right. It had been ever since the heist that he had felt the eyes following him. "I don't think so," he said uncertainly. Sighing again, he shook his head. "I'm probably over thinking things as usual."

She laughed. He enjoyed the sound of it, even smiling slightly as Sato gave him a comradely slap on the back. "Well don't think too hard! If you're not careful, you'll run into someone with that oblivious thinking face that you keep showing."

He flushed. Did he look that odd trying to puzzle things through? Then again, everyone always was teasing him for being baby-faced. Maybe that was why Miwako never seemed to see him as anything more than a friend. "I'll try to pay closer attention," he heard himself assure her. She smiled and walked back to her desk. He could practically feel Shiratori glaring from across the room. He took a sip of the cola feeling tired. It wasn't his fault that she had chosen to give him a friendly pick me up.

* * *

It was about a week later that he was roused from a nap to the annoying voice of Nakamori-keibu, who shouldn't even be at the office. It took about thirty seconds to process the earsplitting growl, peppered with heavy swearing, and piece together that there was to be a KID heist, and that the officers were supposed to drop everything and provide security.

"What's the point of having a task force if they can't do their job?" Shiratori grumbled from where he stood nearby, having apparently been interrupted mid trip to refilling his coffee cup. "Doesn't he know that we're homicide division?"

"I don't think he much cares," Takagi said glumly. With the watching eyes, he'd had less sleep lately, and he had been enjoying his nap. "I suppose we'd better get a head start before he tried to bite our heads off."

"I think you really have to worry about having your face pinched off," his fellow officer muttered darkly, sipping his coffee. "Well, I'm not going. You can go. I have a pile of paperwork that needs done now."

There was a feeling of dread growing in his stomach as he was more or less dragged out of the office by a still-fuming Nakamori-keibu along with three more officers and an irate Megure. Considering the last heist he had attended had ended with him cuffed with his own handcuffs and stuffed in a small, claustrophobic space, he thought it was very understandable that he was less than thrilled to be along for the ride. For obviously they wouldn't catch KID this time either. No amount of people would be enough. Funnily enough, the only person who he could think of having a chance at outsmarting the thief was Conan, and perhaps only because the child was as sharp and unsettling as the target himself.

One pinched face and a disconcerting feeling of being treated like a child for falling into KID's past trap, he was standing at his station, far from where the main action of the heist would be taking place. He supposed it was better to be in a possible escape route than in the room itself. The worst pranks seemed to be reserved for Nakamori-keibu, and he was always in the thick of the action. Actually, on second thought he was glad that he was in some random hallway. KID likely had dozens of escape routes that didn't include his hallway. Now came the wait.

Ten minutes of anticipation was really not helping, Takagi decided. All it was doing was making him jump at shadows. He had hardly noticed when KID had jumped him before. Now as he heard chaos from the heist scene, he breathed a sigh of relief. The thief had come on time and hadn't knocked him out or stuffed him in another crammed him into another tiny space. Now he could wait at his position for the thief to possibly run by and make an appearance of trying to catch him, or—which is what he hoped—he could just stand there and hope the thief ran in the exact opposite direction.

He should have known luck was not on his side.

* * *

Kaitou KID had smirked when he saw the defense layout, and not because it was holier than swiss cheese. Obviously the gods were on his side, yet again, for the police officer he had spent the last few weeks…observing…was on his own and in a very promising looking escape route if one factored in the fact that there was a false wall. He had to love old houses and their sometimes-sketchy blueprints. Paranoid people left passages, and passages meant he could escape one more way than he could before.

The heist itself was a cinch. Smoke bomb, appear in one corner, taunt the detectives, leave a decoy moving in the wrong direction, escape with the jewel—he could do it all in his sleep if he had to. Hearing Nakamori's dulcet bellows cursing his ancestors was enough to put a smile on his face any day. If he just so happened to go down the path that poor little officer Takagi was waiting on…

To give him credit, the man didn't make any noise or faint when he appeared behind him. Instead his eyes grew twice their usual size and he let out a strangled sounding curse word that sounded laughable coming from his mouth.

"Really, Takagi-san," KID taunted. "Is such language necessary?"

"KID…!" the startled man managed to get out from his apparently hyperventilation.

KID smirked and bowed with a flourish. "At your service. Now, are you going to let me through…peacefully?" He allowed his voice to drop as he sidled up closer, invading the man's personal space. Predictably, he started to sputter and look vaguely panicked.

"Y-you're not going to get away with it?" Takagi said vaguely.

KID laughed. "Oh really?" He ran a finger down the other man's face and frowned. "Nakamori-keibu should find a less painful was of checking," he murmured. There was still a faint red patch—one that was quickly being rivaled by the growing blush on Takagi's face.

"What are you—?" Takagi found himself suddenly cross eyed as he tried to rationally explain the sudden presence of a silk covered finger on his lips.

KID leaned in close, trademark smile on his face. "You're interesting," he said simply. "I like interesting."

Takagi blinked, suddenly thinking of the eyes. His hand twitched for his handcuffs.

"And you have a backbone!" KID said gleefully as he skipped back out of range as Takagi took a swipe at him. Before the other man could blink, he was close again, and completely invading the officer's space. Kaito gave him a quick peck on the mouth. "I look forward to seeing much, much more of you in the future," he said, grinning. Behind him he heard the skid of feet and glanced over his shoulder to see Conan staring at the scene in openmouthed shock.

One step took him from the still frozen Takagi and toward his escape, then another. "See you around, tantei-kun, Wataru-san." He winked cheekily and let off a smoke bomb.

By the time it cleared, a very angry Nakamori-keibu was shaking a mortified Takagi while Edogawa Conan repeatedly pinched himself. Perhaps KID had added a hallucinogenic to the smoke? Takagi thought desperately.

His next thought made him want to cry. What would he tell Miwako?


End file.
